


The Transfer Student

by glitteryconcrete



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Flowers, Homecoming, Sledding, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:21:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23949808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteryconcrete/pseuds/glitteryconcrete
Summary: Katara liked the way his eyes shined gold in the light. She thought his hair would look better tied up, like Sokka’s, instead of shaggy and messy, and she could tell he didn’t come to the dance alone, boutonniere on his collar.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 62
Collections: Zutara Month 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Part of Zutara Month Part 2 2020.
> 
> Day 1, Prompt: Flowers
> 
> To find out more go here: https://neurologicaldamage.tumblr.com/post/616498919502905344/here-it-is-everyone-zutara-month-part-2-rules

Katara liked the way his eyes shined gold in the light. She thought his hair would look better tied up, like Sokka’s, instead of shaggy and messy, and she could tell he didn’t come to the dance alone, boutonniere on his collar. 

She didn’t know him, meaning he was probably an upperclassman. She heard Sokka’s voice in her head. Always the older boys Katara, first Jet, then Haru, now this. She frowned. It wasn’t that she tried to go after older boys; it just happened, much to Aang’s disappointment. Perhaps it was something to do with her mothering nature. It was harder to mother boys three years her senior. 

She glanced back at him, grinding his hips awkwardly, a trap beat blaring over the speakers. She tried not to notice what, or rather who, he was grinding his hips against. As awkward as he looked grinding against this girl (his date?) it would be a hell of a lot more awkward to be caught staring at him, so she moved her eyes, to something, anything else. 

The lights flashed green as Suki ran up to Katara, “Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you all night!” Suki motioned Sokka, quickly following behind her. 

“Yeah! I need to keep my eye on you to make sure you don’t start dancing with any of these idiots!” Sokka exclaimed, “Any of these guys could easily ask you to dance any moment, but none of them are good enough for my little sister.”  
“Sokka! I am old enough to dance with any guys of my choosing! You’re not in charge of me.”  
“You might be old enough to dance, but you’re not old enough to ‘dance’,” he made quotation marks with his fingers, “like THAT!” pointing to the older boy Katara had her eye on earlier. He had fallen into a rhythm, moving with the beat, his grinding was less stiff and awkward and more pornographic. 

Katara blushed. The bright colored lights hid her rouge. 

“Zuko… always making a scene,” Sokka whispered to himself.

Suki giggled, “You’re just jealous that you aren’t a star athlete from unimaginable wealth”

“Not true! I’m a star athlete! And who cares if he’s rich? Not me.”

“Star chess player is not the same as a star athlete, Sokka”

Sokka crossed his arms as Suki and he continued to argue. Katara drowned them out, looking from her brother and his girlfriend back to the handsome stranger, Zuko. That’s what Sokka had said. 

She had heard the rumors about Zuko. Transferred from a fancy private school here last year, apparently, he was a trained martial artist, and transferred those skills to the wrestling mat once he realized public schools don’t have martial arts teams. Placed third in the state for wrestling last year, best in school history. According to the rumors he was fluent in Japanese, his father was a higher-up in an oil company, and his uncle was a high-ranking military official. Although Katara knew of him, she had yet to see him, he didn’t have any social media to find pictures of him on. He also didn’t have any friends. Thus, Katara had almost two months at school without seeing the infamous transfer student. And despite all the rumors, no one had mentioned that he was absolutely stunning. 

When Katara turned back to Sokka and Suki, they were gone, lost in the crowd of the dance. She grunted in frustration, heading to the bathroom to hopefully find someone she knew. 

The bathroom lights are shown impossibly bright compared to the flashing colors of the dance, and the booming music was muted to a dull hush, amplified whenever someone opened the door to the crowded room. Katara’s eyes searched the room, for any familiar face, but she was still alone. She assumed her friends had left the dance early once they realized the events of Homecoming didn’t exactly line up with their innocent expectations. She sent a quick text to Valarie, asking where the girls went, before glancing at her reflection. Her lip gloss had lost all its glossiness. She dug into her bag to find the bottle, gently applying a second coat to her lips, when the bathroom opened once again, revealing the loud thumping beat, and something else? Crying. No. Sobbing. 

Katara looked towards the door to see a young brunette girl stumble in, tears rolling down her face, makeup destroyed. She looked familiar, but Katara couldn’t place her. The girl’s friends soothed her, rubbing her back, hushing her sobs. “Jin, Jin, you gotta tell us what happened,” One girl whispered, to which another replied, “We can’t help you if we don’t know what’s wrong.” 

Katara felt wrong for listening to their conversation but continued to touch up her makeup, pretending t ignore the scene next to her.

The sobs grew softer and softer until the girl finally choked out, “He called some other girl’s name. MAI. I thought we were really making a connection. I thought I was breaking through his shell, you know. We- we’ve been going out for a few weeks now, and I really thought we had something, but it turns out I was just a stand-in for some other girl. Mai.” Her sobs continued to fill the bathroom.

“Jin, don’t let it get to you. He’s just an asshole. YOu thought he had a soft heart, but it turns out his insides are just as cold as his exterior. Mai’s probably private school bitch, you’re so much better than that,” her friend reassured her. Katara’s head turned. Private school bitch? This was the girl Zuko was dancing with. 

Katara began walking out the bathroom, but not before something was thrown at her, a corsage. “Throw that out for me on your way out,” the girl half-shouted, half-choked out. 

She examined the corsage, it was beautiful and expensive. It was mostly made up of fire lilies, the orange flower complimented the deep blue dress the girl was wearing, while the band and ribbon was almost the exact shade of her dress. Katara threw the corsage into her bag as it buzzed. Valarie had responded that they were just on their way out to get ice cream. 

Katara quickly scrambled to find her friends before they left, but as she was walking out she made eye-contact with a tall boy in the corner, Zuko. He smiled at her, looking very very lonely, fire lily boutonniere on his collar. She blushed, then continued walking. 

All night, even while stuffing her face full of ice cream (blue moon flavor), she thought about the corsage burning a hole in her bag, and couldn’t help but dream of his face.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I thought I was too old for this! But how could anyone possibly grow out something so fun?” 
> 
> “No one is ever too old for sledding Katara, even you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of Zutara Month 2020 Part 2
> 
> Day 2: Winter

As the fall of her freshman year slipped by, Katara thought of the corsage tossed to her at homecoming less every day, and more importantly, stopped searching for Zuko in the hall. Before she knew it, midterms week had arrived. Long gone were football games with friends, the days of getting lost around the school, and the homecoming dance. Katara was quickly forced to the reality that high school was more than just new experiences and school spirit. It was first and foremost a place to learn. Teachers seemed to never stop assigning homework, projects, and presentations, and midterms were just a week away! 

Katara was overwhelmed, to say the least. She still has yet to make any new friends, finding it hard to connect with the freshman in her regular classes, and finding herself too shy to talk to the various students of all ages in her elective classes. She had recently failed a math test, working double-time to get her grades back up before semester end, and found herself drifting from her middle school friends as they made new friends, without her. On top of everything, Sokka and Suki had been spending an unprecedented amount of time together, whether out on dates or in Sokka’s room with the door locked, and Katara couldn’t find the time to talk her brother about anything, let alone her problems. 

She missed her brother and her old friends and even her exes. She missed her mom and dad. She wrote letters to her dad almost every week at the beginning of the semester, updating him on the craziness of high school, but soon she found herself just repeating the same information letter after letter and wrote less infrequently. 

One day, while helping Gran-Gren with dinner, she glanced out the window to see a beautiful sight: the first snowfall. The snow was puffy and white, untouched by dirt, piling up on the grass at an accelerated rate. Katara thought about her childhood of making snow angels with her mom and having snowball fights with Sokka and sledding with Aang. 

Her grandmother took notice of her gaze out the window and said: “Katara, finish these dishes and then you can go outside.”

“But Gran-Gran, I shouldn’t. I’m getting too old to be playing the snow, and I have homework.”

“I will not allow my grandmother to waste the remains of her youth doing homework. Go outside.”

Katara smiled. Her grandmother was right. Grabbing her snow pants, jacket, boots, and a hat, she slipped into the clothes she knew so well. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was planning on doing in the snow, but her feet seemed to have a plan of their own. They marched over to Aang’s house next door, sled on her shoulder, and before she could even process what had happened she was sledding on the big hill. Aang sat in the front of the sled, feet planted in the snow to hold the sled in place. Katara hunched over, ready to run and jump into the back of the long sled. “GO!” shouted Aang, and Katara launched herself into the sled, practically catapulting it into the air, reaching speeds that felt impossible on a plastic sled. The snow continued to fall, coating their lashes, and as soon as their ride was over, buckled over from laughter, they ran back up the hill to go again. 

“I thought I was too old for this! But how could anyone possibly grow out something so fun?” Katara shouted at Aang as they were prepping for their next ride. 

“No one is ever too old for sledding Katara, even you,” Aang said, sounding hurt at the idea of Katara growing out if their traditions, of Katara growing up before Aang. He shouted to go at Katara once again.

Just as Katara landed on the sled, she spotted something at the bottom of the hill. Someone walking at a slow pace. Someone familiar. The shaggy black hair, the scarred face, and of course, the handsome face were impossible to miss. Zuko. Katara screamed and jumped from excitement. Zuko Zuko Zuko Zuko. Katara sent the sled spinning, Aang and herself crashing into the snow. 

“Katara, WHAT THE HECK?!?!” Aang shouted at her, but she didn’t hear him. Zuko turned his head to see what had caused the noise, and subsequently, Katara buried her face in the snow. 

Katara wouldn’t take her face out of the snow until Aang pinky promised that Zuko was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> If there are any typos feel free to let me know!  
> I'm going to be continuing this story throughout Zutara Month, with different prompts hopefully guiding the story in different directions


End file.
